A bill tabled at Queen’s Park this week would make the City of Ottawa officially bilingual.
The City already has an existing bilingualism by-law, but Bill 140, known as the City of Ottawa Amendment Act would require future city councils keep such a by-law in place.
“The City of Ottawa is the capital of Canada, a bilingual country that has English and French as its two official languages,” the bill’s preamble says. "The City of Ottawa has a by-law that recognizes its bilingual character and has adopted a languages policy to provide services in the two official languages and recognizes both official languages as having the same rights, status and privileges."
The text of bill amends the 1999 City of Ottawa Act to recognize the bilingual character of Ottawa, and to require that the City pass a by-law that meets the requirements laid out in the French Language Services Act.
The bill also recognizes that the City’s 2001 bilingualism by-law fits those criteria.
The bill was tabled by Ottawa-Vanier Liberal MPP Nathalie Des Rosiers. She tweeted in French that she was pleased the bill was adopted by the government, and called it a “victory for a bilingual Ottawa.”
Très heureuse que mon projet de loi privé sur Ottawa Ville bilingue ait été repris par le gouvernement. Belle victoire pour #ottawaBilingue
— Nathalie Des Rosiers (@ndesrosiers) November 14, 2017
President of the Francophone Assembly of Ontario, Carol Jolin, told Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa Now he is pleased with the motion.
“We’ve wanted to make sure those services we have – we have very good services in French in Ottawa – we wanted to maintain those services and never be scared of losing them,” he said. “I know people have been hoping for it for thirty, forty years that Ottawa would reflect the two official languages that we have. It took a long time to get there.”
Jolin said the criticism that this change could affect jobs at the City doesn’t hold water, as the policies that are already in effect aren’t changing as a result of this bill.
“It won’t change a thing,” Jolin says. “Will it mean that every service we're asking from the City of Ottawa, that people will have to be bilingual, and the answer is no. It doesn’t change anything.”
In fact, Ottawa’s bilingualism by-law already protects employees. Section 3 states, “The implementation of the bilingualism policy shall not cause any employee of the municipality to lose his or her employment.”
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson is not opposed to the bill, saying earlier this year, "It in essence recognizes our by-law and our by-law works well. So the passage of the bill will not change things."
The bill is expected to be passed before the end of the year.
With files from CTV Ottawa.